Men with disabilities are twice as likely as those without disabilities to experience sexual violence. Yet few people know just how common it is, including health care professionals.

The Arc’s National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability® and the Board Resource Center recognize that health care professionals are in a front line position to educate patients with disabilities about sexual violence and how to report it. The project is releasing new training videos and other valuable online resources to give doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals the practical tools they need to have simple, direct, and honest conversations about sexual violence with male patients who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Health care professionals generally have little or no experience talking about sexual violence with this population. And men with intellectual and developmental disabilities may not know if they are victims of sexual violence, how to talk about it to their doctor, how to report it to authorities, or how to access healing services like counseling.

Talk About Sexual Violence provides tools that build the capacity of health care professionals to talk about this issue with greater confidence and lays the groundwork needed to empower patients with disabilities to talk openly about sexual violence, decreasing the likelihood of future violence.

As part of the second phase of the Talk About Sexual Violence project, The Arc and the Board Resource Center are proud to present:

• New videos;
• New training tools to be used with each video;
• Male body part and word charts;
• Useful resources from other organizations; and
• A final report.

“Survivors need to talk things out. We need a safe place to tell things and be heard. Listen to us, hear us, believe us. Let us talk about it as long as we need to. Let us be brave with you. We are getting out the pain, one conversation at a time.” – James Meadours, National Peer Advocate & Survivor